


this feels like falling in love

by BeingAPartOfSomethingSpecial



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mostly just comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Watford (Simon Snow)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 18:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16046372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeingAPartOfSomethingSpecial/pseuds/BeingAPartOfSomethingSpecial
Summary: 'What did you say she called me?’ Baz asks suddenly, ‘My mother, during the Visiting. What did you say she called me?’‘Her rosebud boy.’Baz shook his head.‘She never called me that. She used to call me her little phoenix.’Simon and Baz talk a bit more about Natasha Grimm-Pitch's Visiting and both come to the same realisation.





	this feels like falling in love

**Author's Note:**

> title from Ed Sheeran's Kiss Me
> 
> my first piece for this pairing, I hope you enjoy, I'm still trying to get their voices right.

‘What did you say she called me?’ Baz asks suddenly, his hand running through my curls. Tipping my head back, I smile softly and hum in question. Baz takes a deep breath, his hand stilling in my hair. ‘My mother, during the Visiting. What did you say she called me?’

‘Her rosebud boy.’

Baz shook his head.

‘She never called me that. She used to call me her little phoenix,’ he confesses quietly. I smile at that before shrugging and closing my eyes. My head tips back against Baz’s chest and I pull his arm around my waist more tightly. I love feeling him wrapped around me, it makes me feel safe and it helps to keep me cool. I always run hot and he’s always cold. It’s probably because he’s a vampire but I don’t care. All I know is that we balance each other out. We balance each other out in a lot of ways.

‘I don’t know,’ I reply, ‘But’s that definitely what she said. My rosebud boy. I remember because I thought at the time that it was beautiful.’

‘But Snow,’ Baz says. I can’t see him because my eyes are still closed, but he sounds serious. And he’s calling me Snow, so he must be. Not that he calls me Simon very often. But this is normally the kind of time when he would, when it’s just us in the flat and there’s no one around for him to have to impress. So, however much I want to tell him that I think ‘little phoenix’ is the perfect nickname for him, I try and concentrate as he continues, ‘She _never_ called me that. So why would she have said it during a Visiting, it doesn’t make any sense.’

‘I really don’t know Baz,’ I repeat, shrugging my shoulders again before tucking my face into Baz’s neck to press a small kiss at the collar of his shirt. I hear him sigh heavily from above me and then he pushes me away gently, so he can sit up properly. I mourn the loss of his cold body against mine but my eyes open as I look up at him sat against the headboard. He looks serious as he rubs the back of his neck with his hand.

‘Simon,’ he starts, his voice is low as he looks at a point over my shoulder. Even though he’s using my first name, he sounds so cold and distant he won’t look at me properly. I hate it when he does this. It hardly ever happens anymore, but right after everything with the Mage and the White Chapel, it was like he couldn’t look me in the eyes. Not that I was any better at the time. I think I only got through those first few months because Baz refused to let go of my hand. I constantly felt like I was slipping away into some lake or something that only I could see, and Baz was the only thing keeping me above water. After a few seconds, he carries on, ‘What if it wasn’t my mum?’

‘But we found Nicodemus, that wouldn’t have made sense else,’ I say as I wrap my own arms around my knees as I pull myself into a sitting position next to him. I don’t understand, I don’t know why he’s trying to make this harder than it already was. We found Nicodemus, we _found_ him. It _had_ to have been her.

‘Not that bit,’ Baz replies, ‘That _was_ my mum. But maybe there was more than one.’

I feel my brow furrow as I try to remember if the voices sounded the same or if there was a pause between the two or –

‘But who else could it have possibly been?’ I say, trying to get Baz to look at me. All he does is shrug in response and keep his eyes locked over my shoulder. Baz never shrugs, he hates having to admit that he doesn’t know something, he always tries to bullshit an answer. I almost say this out loud, but I stop myself at the last second, this isn’t the time.

‘I don’t know, Simon,’ he replies. Despite the severity of the situation, I still find myself preening slightly at the continued use of my first name. ‘Bunce said that there were quite a few Visitings. Maybe you were lucky enough to get two.’

‘I wasn’t even supposed to get one,’ I say sadly. Letting out a long sigh, I continue, ‘Who could possibly have wanted to Visit me? There’s no one in this world _or_ the next that loves me that much.’

Baz sits up straighter, pulling his eyes away from the point over my shoulder and narrowing them.

‘Don’t say shit like that, Snow,’ he says sharply, reaching out and tugging me back towards his chest. Despite my attempts not to, I still let out a short, choked sob as I clutch at Baz’s shirt, my fingers digging into the stupidly expensive material. Everything Baz wears is stupidly expensive. His voice is low and soft when he speaks again, ‘There are so many people that love you, Simon.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ I mumble into Baz’s chest. I do know, really. I just find it hard to believe it sometimes. My therapist says that it’s probably to do with growing up in care homes and never knowing my parents, never having a place that was really _mine._ At least, not until Watford. Which turned out to not be mine anyway. I think she’s probably right.

Baz runs one of his hands through my hair, his ridiculously long fingers twisting in the mess of curls that I can never control. His other arm is wrapped around my waist, he’s holding me so tight that it makes me want to cry a little bit. He hates seeing me so broken and he hates what the Mage’s death has done to me. Actually, he hates what the Mage had done to me at all, both in life and in death. And I hate how much he hates it. I don’t want him to think that I’m broken. If he does then he might get sick of trying to fix me and find someone else. Someone whole. Not that I _really_ think he will, but he could. And that scares me. Terrifies me, actually. I try to drag myself out of my thoughts, and just concentrate on the words that Baz is murmuring into my hair.

‘Because Bunce loves you, completely and utterly. Wellbelove loves you too, in her own way,’ Baz says, his voice still soft. He presses his lips to the spot where my hair meets my skin near my temple and murmurs, ‘And _I_ love you, Simon Snow. I’ve loved you for as long as I’ve known what love was.’

I let out another choked sob and twist Baz’s shirt around my fingers even more tightly. It’s the only thing keeping grounded right now. I feel like I’m falling apart. I often feel like this when Baz says things like that.

‘Baz,’ I choke out, my voice sounds tear-filled and utterly heart-breaking. ‘Baz, I – I. Oh god, so much.’

‘I know, love, I know,’ he says. He’s stroking my hair still and he’s whispering against my skin. ‘Shh, Simon, shh. Don’t cry, it’s okay, I know. I know, I’ve got you, love, I’ve got you.’

I love hearing him say that, love it when he calls me love. He calls me that even less than he calls me Simon and it nearly kills me every time. I force myself to lift my head from his chest and try to choke back another sob. Baz reaches out, cupping my cheek in his hand and brushing away the tears that have escaped with the pad of his thumb.

‘I really do, Baz,’ I say again. Even though the words are sticking in my throat, I know that he knows what I mean. I say it sometimes, but sometimes the words just won’t come. I don’t know why, but Baz always knows when it happens and makes sure that I know that he knows anyway. I watch him as he nods slowly.

‘I know, love,’ he says again. Leaning forwards, he presses a kiss to my forehead, then one on each of my cheeks, then to each of my eyelids as my eyes fall closed. I find myself smiling through the tears still filling my eyes. I love Baz when he’s like this. I love him all the time, but especially when he’s like this, when he’s so gentle and every kiss is so delicate and measured.

‘I’m sorry Baz, I must look like such a mess,’ I say quietly, lifting my hands up to cover my face. I already know what he’s going to say but I still try. Baz shakes his head and pushes my hands away, his own moving to cup my cheeks and tip my face up towards him.

‘Nope, not a mess at all, still the most beautiful and wonderful guy I’ve ever seen.’

‘You’re unbelievable sometimes, Baz,’ I say. My next words are lost as Baz leans down to press a kiss to the edge of my mouth. ‘Sometimes I struggle to believe you’re real.’

‘Trust me Simon Snow, I feel the same,’ Baz says in return, ducking down again to press a kiss to the other side of my mouth. ‘But you’re so, so loved, Simon. You need to remember that.’

‘I know, I’m sorry Baz.’

‘No apologies, just trust me.’

‘I do,’ I say. I feel desperate, my hands clutching at his shirt as I speak, I need him to know, to understand. ‘I do trust you. With my life.’

‘I know, Simon,’ Baz says as he runs his hand through my hair again, his fingers tangling in the short curls at the back. ‘And I trust you with mine.’

I nod, pressing my own kiss to Baz’s cold mouth. Pulling away, I study Baz’s face carefully. It takes me a while to find the words, it’s a difficult question anyway and I keep getting distracted by Baz’s face. By the high arch of his ridiculous eyebrows, or the bump in his nose that was from the time I broke it all those years ago. I never would have imagined at the time that _this_ was where we’d end up. I never _could_ have. This is so beyond any of my wildest dreams. Finally, taking a deep breath, I force myself to ask the question that’s been bouncing around my head since Baz suggested that maybe it wasn’t his mum.

‘Do you have any ideas?’ I ask, my wand hand is shaking slightly. I see Baz glance down at it. It’s another thing left over from the incident in the White Chapel, another reminded that I can’t get rid of. When I’m stressed out or worried about something, my hand shakes. Baz hates it. He told me once that it thought that it was unfair that my body reminded me of the most stressful experience I had ever been through when I was already feeling worried about something. I told him that I didn’t need a tremor in my hand to remind me of the White Chapel and he’d hugged me so hard that I thought my spine might snap. He called me love then too.

‘Ideas about what, Simon?’

His voice is careful and measured, he does have an idea, I can tell, but he doesn’t want me to get my hopes up or have them dashed. Because I think his idea might be the same as my idea and I’m not sure quite which it would do to me if I’m right.

‘Who it might have been, the Visiting. If it was someone else,’ I say. I know that I’m pushing him, but I want someone to tell me that I’m not crazy. My fingers are still tangled in his shirt and my grip is beginning to stretch the material out. I try to get them to relax but I can’t, even less so when Baz shakes his head.

He is keeping his voice low as he speaks, like he’s talking to a wounded animal or an easily frightened child. ‘No, Simon, not really. Only thoughts, not anything real.’

‘Tell me?’ I ask, I know that I sound desperate, but I can’t help it. I need to know if he thinks the same the as me. If he thinks that it could be, that it could have belonged to –

That the voice might have belonged to my mother.

I need to know if he’ll think I’m insane if I say that.

He sighs and squeezes me tighter against his chest, the hand around my waist pressing into the small of my back as our legs tangle together. He strokes his hand through my hair again before he opens his mouth to speak. Closing his eyes, he shakes his head and shuts it again.

‘Come on, Baz,’ I say, my voice still sounding as desperate as it did before. ‘Please, I need to know. I need to know who you think it could have been.’

‘Simon,’ he says, his voice low and soft as he pulls me up gently until my back is pressed against the headboard next to his own. One arm winds itself around my waist, his hand pressing against my hip as the other one rests against my jean-clad thigh. My tail curls around his wrist and I see him smile warmly as he looks down at it. He always finds my tail funny, mocks me for giving myself a cartoon dragon’s tail. But his smile drops as he nods slowly, having seemingly made up his mind about something.

‘I don’t know Simon, and I’m far from sure, so please don’t put everything on this, but I think that it might have been –’ he stops again. I nod and reach up to run my hand through his dark hair. He thought about getting it cut but I’m glad he didn’t, he says that it makes him look too much like a vampire, but I think it’s gorgeous. It’s just long enough now for him to get it into a man bun. He hates it when I call it that and he hardly ever does it, but I love it when he does.

‘I know that you don’t know, Baz, I’m not asking you to know,’ I say, I hope that he knows that I know that he doesn’t know. Which doesn’t sound like it makes any sense, but it does. To me, anyway.

‘I know you’re not, Simon,’ he says quickly, pressing his hand more firmly against my hip for a second. I feel the patch of skin that his hand is covering cool instantly and find myself relaxing against his side. ‘I just, I don’t want to be wrong.’

I nod, running my hand through his hair again.

‘I know, but I just need to know what you think. If you think it could be –’

I can’t get myself to say the words, but I can tell by the way that Baz’s eyes fall shut quickly that he knows what I’m suggesting. That he knows who I think the voice was. Who I kind of desperately want the voice to be. And not to be.

‘Yes, Simon,’ he says after a few moments of heavy silence, his eyes opening and coming up to meet my own. ‘I think that it could have been. It had to have been someone that loves you and loves you so much. And you said that it was a woman’s voice?’

I nod. Part of me can’t believe that Baz believes me. Not only believes me, agrees with me. Thinks I could be right.

‘Yeah,’ I say, my voice catching in my throat. ‘It was a woman’s voice. Definitely.’

‘Then I think it could have been, Simon. I really do.’

‘My mother.’

My voice is almost inaudible as I murmur the words. I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly as Baz’s arm tightens around my waist.

‘Are you okay, Simon?’

I nod. I’m smiling, grinning, really, and I can’t stop. It turns into a laugh, brighter and more full-bodied than I think I’ve laughed in years. Possibly ever. I pull away from Baz to clutch at my stomach. I’m laughing so much that it hurts. Baz’s cool hand presses against my back and my shoulders relax.

‘Simon, please talk to me?’ he sounds desperate. Scared, even. It’s this thought that breaks me out of my hysterics. I turn quickly to press my face into Baz’s neck, his arms coming up to clutch at my back.

‘I’m okay, I promise, I’m okay.’

I feel rather than see him nod, his chin bumping against the back of head.

‘You sure?’

I pull my face away from his neck to meet his eyes.

‘I’m okay,’ I say again, still smiling. ‘I’m, I’m brilliant Baz. My mother loved me, she loved me so much that she came back just to tell me. I never thought that anyone would ever love me that much.’

He doesn’t speak, just hugs me close to his chest. He shuffles us down until his head is against the pillow and I’m draped across his chest, our legs tangled together. His hand sweeps across my back in broad strokes until I find myself relaxing so much that keeping my eyes open feels like too much effort. It is only as I let them fall closed and feel myself drifting off to sleep that Baz speaks. His voice is low and soft, and I think he thinks that I’m asleep.

‘I love you that much, Simon Snow.’


End file.
